Posts tagged swarm

More than a year ago, Foursquare decided to split its app in two. The main app was now focused on location discovery, while Swarm was created to handle the social check-in side of things. The reason? To streamline the two seemingly disparate functions so that each feature could flourish without en...

If you miss the early days of Foursquare, when checking into places was still novel and being mayor of your favorite hangout made you feel like royalty, get ready for a blast from the past. Foursquare just announced that it's brought back mayorships to its spinoff check-in app Swarm (the core Four...

When Foursquare split its app into two separate services, Swarm and Foursquare, some users were unhappy that their favorite gamification elements had been nuked. If you were checking in with Swarm, for instance, it was no longer possible to unlock badges and compete for mayorships with the entire...

A new Foursquare update completely eliminates the need to make an account, letting anyone use it to find a decent place to eat or somewhere to spend time without having to log in or even to create an account. And you know what? It makes perfect sense, since Swarm has taken over its check-in capabi...

Disney's upcoming animated film Big Hero 6, about a boy and his soft robot (and a gang of super-powered friends), is perhaps the largest big-budget mash-up you'll ever see. Every aspect of the film's production represents a virtual collision of worlds. The story, something co-director Don Hall cal...

Overwhelming numbers can help win a sea battle, but sailors are far too valuable to simply throw away -- and the US Navy knows it. To that end, it recently tested a swarm of robotic gunboats that work in tandem to either protect a main warship or surround the enemy. As you can see in the video bel...

Before quadrocopters become the four-winged horsemen of the robopocalypse, we're quite happy making 'em dance for our entertainment. A new artistic collaboration between the ETH Zurich university and Cirque du Soleil isn't your standard swarm show, though, imagining a more intimate relationship be...

Happy Saturday! Welcome to another edition of Feedback Loop! This week we're talking about those minor user interface quirks that just really grind our gears. Once you're done letting the hate flow, find out whether or not speed-reading apps are worth your time and let people know if you actually...

Who was not a happy camper when Foursquare suddenly decided to take their self-named app, rip the fun part -- check-ins -- out of the app, and put it into a new app named Swarm? Me, that's who. It really torqued me off that an app that I had enjoyed for years was suddenly breaking into two apps. H...

OK, I'm depressed. For years, I've enjoyed using Foursquare to check in at restaurants, airport gates, hotels, and even my own home. During that time, I became "mayor" at a number of different locations and loved getting the occasional badge for doing something awesome like checking at 30 differen...

On May 1st, 2014, Foursquare announced that after nearly five years, it'd be splitting its app in two. The main Foursquare app still exists, but its focus is now on location discovery and local recommendations, thus positioning it as a competitor to Yelp and Google. If you want to check in to a pl...

In an effort to focus more on local search and finding you the best restaurants in your area, Foursquare recently announced that it would splinter off the social aspect of its app -- the part where you check in and find out where your friends are partying -- to an entirely separate one called Swar...